HELENSBUGH LANDSCAPE
I always thought urban was something gritty – edgy and grimy, full of rubbish bins and pub drunk people, it put me off. It made me think those streets and those crowds are just not for me. If it was not the car revved, diesel spilled picture I paint; it was quiet as dusk shop fronts and plain doored restaurants where people greet you with a tilt of the head, a bright smile that you think takes in the clothes you wear, the bags you are holding and the very manner with which you have walked over the threshold.
For me a puddle, a dog, geese overhead; a half conversation with another walker , the chance to talk nonsense to myself when I think no one can hear me; to take photos of the same bit of sparkly water, the same clump of daffodils or the same strange array of lichen covered rocks is the ideal. No pressure here except to spot the ducks taking off as I round the corner or the seals slipping away from their rocks into the sea.
But lately I have begun to notice things; mainly because I have been asked to look around me. A couple holding their toddler by the hand; meeting another couple with back packs and two more children; all of them cuddling and laughing and getting ready to throw out bread for the gregarious seagulls. That splash of a square of bare wood on a blue fence, maybe impersonating some sort of abstract painting. Those shattered muscle shells among the squared pattern of the pier’s floor, sent down by seabirds flying high above.
And of course, the ragged plants pocking up from drainpipes and gutters. A sudden merging of ancient green coated stone with the shine of a red granite plinth. A market stall where the plastic whips in the wind and a stall holder offers someone a piece of chocolate brownie. Dogs on leads, looking curious, oblivious to the traffic, focussed on each other among the crowds.
The smell of hot dough from a donut stall and the tang of coffee on the wind. Ancient timbers pocking out of the sea to support structures we still walk on and sit on and look out to sea from.
And us, a gaggle of people who almost know each other, bound by unspoken bonds of experience in common, you would not wish on other people. Ambling, talking of how a coffee would be better, or that it is time to fill the vape or how cold the wind is. Or looking askance at the public information displays and wondering where the women are on the roll call; when the suffragettes will appear on the list of local heroes.
Looking from the pier inland to the heights of the town; a burst of sun lights up the lifebuoy, illuminates the rain clouds further inland. Looking at my feet there is the small well where a puddle gathers in an old iron covering. Just on the corner is the charity shop where I get many of my books. A slightly expensive one, up near the square is the one that is good for men’s clothes and next to that the restaurant we sometimes go to for nasi goreng and soda and lime on a lunch time where the mums tend to gather to talk the day away.
Just along from that is the Terrace cafe where we sit under an awning and eat soup and if Dash the dog is lucky, the waitress will be there who always gives him more square sausage than he should really ever have. It makes him very happy indeed.
I like it when my eyes open a little bit wider and when suspicion falls away to be replaced by the delight of the multicoloured display of ices in an ice cream shop.
I like this awakening.
(Photos Helensburgh march 2022)
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